Tickets are now on sale for a special screening of Mighty Mary, the documentary about the first all-women's sailing team to challenge for the America's Cup, coming to Maryland Hall's main theater on Tuesday, August 18. Doors open at 6:30 pm with the film beginning at 7 pm, and the evening will close with a Q&A hosted by Annapolis sailing legend Gary Jobson.
The screening is part of an ongoing lineup of notable films from the Eye On Annapolis-covered Annapolis Film Society, which will continue bringing similar screenings to the venue. Tickets cost $20 in advance, and cash will be accepted at the door if seats remain. Maryland Hall itself, at 801 Chase Street, is Anne Arundel County's primary multi-disciplinary arts center, housed in a converted 1932 former high school building with a 752-seat main auditorium, according to Visit Annapolis.
A Team Built From a Newspaper Ad
The film tells the story of a crew assembled after a New York Times advertisement sought female sailors, drawing hopeful applicants from across the country. The resulting Mighty Mary sailing team, initially dismissed by many as a publicity stunt, included Olympic sailors, Olympic rowers, a deaf sailor, a Native American sailor, and the first African American to coach an America's Cup race winner — a roster the film frames as a genuine collection of trailblazing athletes rather than a novelty act.
Director Mary Mazzio, herself a 1992 Olympic rower and Georgetown Law graduate, had a personal stake in telling the story: several of her own 1992 Olympic rowing teammates went on to join the 1995 America3 crew as grinders. As Scuttlebutt Sailing News reports, Mazzio contemplated telling their story for three decades before finally starting production in January 2025. Mazzio directs and produces the film, with additional producing credits going to Grant Hill — the Atlanta Hawks owner and NBA All-Star — and Allison Abner, whose credits include Narcos, The West Wing, and Imperfect Women. Mighty Mary is narrated by both Elizabeth Banks and Hugh Jackman, and was produced in partnership with Paramount's Republic Pictures and Skydance Sports.
Mazzio and Hill previously collaborated on the 2020 sports documentary A Most Beautiful Thing, narrated by Common, which profiled the first all-Black high school rowing team in Chicago, according to 50 Eggs Films. That earlier project's success reflects the same production sensibility Mazzio brought to the 1995 America's Cup story.
The Decision That Divided the Crew
Eye On Annapolis notes that a behind-the-scenes decision, made the night before a race, changed the course of the team's America's Cup campaign — even as the Mighty Mary sailing team exceeded expectations by defeating Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes crew during the challenger trials. According to the Los Angeles Times' contemporaneous 1995 coverage, that decision was syndicate head Bill Koch's choice to bring male tactician David Dellenbaugh onto the boat during the defender semifinals, replacing tactician JJ Fetter, then known as Jennifer Isler. The swap broke Koch's pledge to maintain an all-women crew and caused significant internal tension, even though the team went on to beat Stars & Stripes in the race that followed.
Despite that win, Stars & Stripes ultimately edged out Mighty Mary on points in the Citizen Cup defender series, according to Sail-World's historical account of the 1995 trials. Conner then elected to skipper Young America in the America's Cup match itself, where Team New Zealand took the Cup. The defender trials remain the closest Mighty Mary came to representing the United States on sailing's biggest stage.
A Local Voice at the Microphone
Leading the post-screening discussion is Gary Jobson, a National Sailing Hall of Fame leader based in Annapolis whose own America's Cup résumé runs deep. Jobson served as winning tactician aboard Courageous alongside Ted Turner during the 1977 America's Cup, and he went on to cover nine America's Cup regattas over a 31-year run as ESPN's lead sailing analyst, per the National Maritime Historical Society.
Among the crew members whose stories the film follows is Dawn Riley, who had been the sole female sailor on Bill Koch's victorious 1992 America3 defense crew before joining the 1995 all-women's initiative. Riley later became the first woman to manage an entire America's Cup campaign when she skippered America True in 2000, according to The Sailing Museum & National Sailing Hall of Fame, before going on to direct Oakcliff Sailing in New York.
During the documentary's 18-month production, Mazzio reassembled original crew members aboard their 1995 yacht and interviewed former male competitors, who unexpectedly offered supportive on-camera reflections on how sports culture and gender perceptions have shifted since the 1990s, the same Scuttlebutt Sailing News report notes. The Annapolis date is one stop on a broader summer tour that has already included the Nantucket Film Festival in June and August, NewportFILM at Fort Adams in August, and an August 5 Girls Day event hosted by the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park, according to information from the film's own release materials.
